Monthly Archives: January 2013

I don’t usually publish recipes in the middle of the week but this occasion certainly calls for a celebration. FDR is a political hero, no doubt, for reasons explained in this short article by a good friend and professor at the University of Macedonia, Ioannis Papadopoulos.

This man saved capitalism from its self-destruction.

He also saved freedom from its enemies. Roosevelt was elected president in 1932. He came to office with a dangerous economic crisis at its height. Some 30 percent of the work force was unemployed. Roosevelt began providing relief on a large scale by giving work to the unemployed and by approving a device for bringing increased income to farmers. He adjusted the U.S. currency (the American money system) so that those in debt could pay what they owed. Banks that were closed all over the country were helped to reopen, and gradually the crisis was overcome. In 1934 Roosevelt proposed a national social security system that, he hoped, would prevent another such depression. Citizens would never be without at least minimum incomes again, because the new social security system (still in use today) used money paid by employees and employers to provide support to those who were unemployed, retired, and disabled. Many citizens became devoted supporters of the president who had helped them. Roosevelt became so popular that he won re-election in 1936 by an overwhelming majority.

7 eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

2 cans/4 glasses of evaporated milk

1 glass of sugar

1 ½ glass of sugar for the caramel

You will also need a large baking pan, and a soufflé dish or 8 ramekins.

Preheat oven to 150oC/300oF/Gas 2. First put the large baking pan in the oven and pour in enough hot water to come two thirds of the way up. Place the ramekins inside so that they’re warm when the caramel is poured in. After removing the ramekins, leave the pan with the water in the oven. Wait until the water starts to boil before baking your crème caramel.

Begin by making the caramel: put the sugar in a saucepan and place it over a medium heat. Keep an eye on it until the sugar begins to melt and turn liquid around the edges, which will take 4-6 minutes. Using a wooden spoon, give it a gentle stir and continue to do so until the sugar has transformed to liquid and is the colour of dark runny honey – the whole thing should take about 10 minutes. Remove immediately from the heat to ensure the caramel does not burn. Quickly pour the caramel into the warmed ramekins.

Now proceed with the custard: whisk the eggs with the sugar and the vanilla in a bowl until well mixed. Pour the milk in, whisk together until smooth, then pour the mixture into the buttered ramekins.

Place the ramekins in the oven and cook for about 20-30 minutes or 40 minutes if you have used a soufflé dish. When you take it out of the oven, set aside to cool. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

When you’re ready to serve, loosen it around the sides with a knife, put quite a deep serving plate on top, turn it upside down and give it a hefty shake. What you will then have is a delicious, light, set caramel custard surrounded by a pool of golden caramel sauce.

For the marinade you’re gonna need some white wine along with a blended mix of:

1 celery stalk

2 bay leaves

4-5 whole medium cardamoms

fennel

1 tsp sweet paprika

1 tbsp olive oil

Make sure you cover the chicken and herbs with white wine and put it in the fridge overnight.

The next day remove from fridge and prepare your meal. You’re going to need:

4 chicken or turkey fillets

2 chopped onions (preferably caramelised)

1 leek

7-8 different-coloured peppers

fresh thyme

fresh coriander

a small glass of freshly squeezed orange juice

1 can of lager

some more olive oil

salt and pepper

1 tbsp of flour to thicken the sauce

Brown the chicken fillets along with the leek and slowly add the onions, the peppers and the herbs. Keep stirring for 5 minutes and finally pour over the orange juice and the lager. Simmer for 1 hour. Once the chicken and peppers are tender, remove them from the pan and thicken the sauce with some flour.

Serve with basmati rice or potato puree.

Bon Appétit!

Food for thought

The IMF admitted to having miscalculated the effects of austerity on countries like Greece thus causing over 1m people losing their jobs, over 3000 people committing suicide and the country’s prospects of recovery slim. So, they went only 200% off the mark; what’s the big deal?

And finally concluded that the medicine may be killing the patient but they will persist in administering it against all evidence probably because, as the renowned economist Billy Mitchell points out in this article, austeritarian economists have confused economics with religion.

In a bowl, whisk the eggs with the sugar until the mixture whitens.
Add the flour and whisk.
Melt the chocolate with the butter.
Add egg mixture to the chocolate / powder.
put the preparation into ramekins and cook 10 minutes in the oven.

Food for thought

New Year’s style resolution for 2013. Here’s mine: stay close to nature, cooking and reading the classics. 🙂

“Researchers at the University of Liverpool found the prose of Shakespeare and Wordsworth and the like had a beneficial effect on the mind, providing a ‘rocket-boost’ to morale by catching the reader’s attention and triggering moments of self-reflection. (…) The research also found poetry, in particular, increased activity in the right hemisphere of the brain, an area concerned with ‘autobiographical memory’, which helped the reader to reflect on and reappraise their own experiences in light of what they had read. The academics said this meant the classics were more useful than self-help books.”

Cut the vegetables into big pieces. In a big pan add the olive oil and let it heat, then add the meat and cook it until it’s light brown. Add the vegetables and the coriander except the tomato. Cook them for 2 minutes, add the lemon juice, the tomato, the bay leaf and 1,5 litre of boiled water. Let it simmer for about an hour and half. Finally, season. Then remove the beef from the pan and with by adding a little corn flour you can make your soup velouté, otherwise you can enjoy it the way it is!

Enjoy!

Food for thought

This is an excellent lecture on the history of financial crises and the way they were combated in the US you can listen to while preparing your meal. 🙂

Here’s a short excerpt to get you in the mood:

“The politics of virtue and vice.It’s very easy to come to confuse economic with moral and even religious concepts. People are easily led to believe that hard work and thrift produce surpluses, that sunshine and soft living produce deficits and debt. Things that we would instantly recognise as racial stereotypes if they were applied to African states or in the northern American context to ethnic groups become common rhetorical currency and the debtors are admonished to be better people, to reform themselves, to adjust, to tighten their belts, to work harder, to cut their wages, to forgo their pensions. And in doing this, the creditors slit their own throats and deprive themselves of their own markets. And nothing is solved because the debts and the deficits don’t go away.”

Serves 4-6

Cooking: 2.5 hours

A classic 11-ingredient meal the way my beloved mum makes it, usually on Sundays. This is by far the tastiest stifado I’ve ever had. This is considered to be a rather heavy meal but in this recipe there’s no browning so as to keep it as light as possible. I use veal but many people prefer rabbit to go with all these onions. I suggest you try both bearing in mind that the rabbit takes only about an hour to cook.

1kg/2.2 pounds beef or veal, diced

2,5kg/ 5,5 pounds baby onions

1 small wine glass olive oil

1 small wine glass vinegar

5 large juicy tomatoes chopped or 400gr tin chopped tomatoes

5-6 garlic cloves

1tsp cumin

5-6 pimentos

2-3 bay leaves

salt

pepper

The day before cooking, clean the baby onions and leave them overnight in a large bowl covered with water. Next morning, remove them from the bowl and place them in a colander for about an hour.

Use a large shallow pan. Pour the oil, add half the beef, half the onions on top along with the garlic cloves, then the remaining beef and finally the remaining onions on top.

Add the rest of the ingredients (tomato, vinegar, etc) and season. Garlic cloves can be used whole or finely chopped. Simmer for 2,5 hours. Do not add water unless you feel it is absolutely necessary; not to worry, the onions will keep the stew moist the whole time.

Bon Appétit!

Food for thought

With so many economic, political, and social problems facing us today, there is little point in focusing attention on something that is not one. The false fear of which I speak is the chance of US debt default. There is no need to speculate on what that likelihood is, I can give you the exact number:

there is 0% chance that the US will be forced to default on the debt.

We could choose to do so, just as a person trapped in a warehouse full of food could choose to starve, but we could never be forced to. This is not a theory or conjecture, it is cold, hard fact.

Place a deep pan over medium heat, add the butter and then the onions. Add salt and sauté stirring continuously. Once the onions wither and become soft (this could take up to 20 minutes), turn up heat to high and keep stirring until they brown.

Add the garlic and once you can smell it pour the brandy first and then the chicken broth. Finally add the bay leaves and some more salt and simmer for 30min. Keep tasting as you season with the pepper and thyme.

Smear the bread slices with olive oil and the garlic halves. Grill until crust. Remove, add the grated cheese and grill again until cheese melts.

Bon Appétit!

Food for thought

(sigh) This post should be France-related, and it would have if I hadn’t seen this:

“They cheered, they guffawed, they mocked. Picture the scene, and don’t forget it as the next two and a half years of Cameron’s Britain drag on: a smug pack of over-paid Tory MPs – some worth millions – sniggering as they prepared to slash the incomes of Britain’s already struggling poor. Labour’s Lisa Nandy and Ian Mearns pleaded with them in the Chamber, vainly, to stop laughing. Not since 1931 has a Government attempted to deliberately, consciously reduce the incomes of the poor. Oh, the hilarity.”

Two things here:

One is the nerve of the super rich to attack the poorest citizens and laugh about it like proper sociopaths and the other is the excuse they employ to act the way they do: deficit. Excuse me, but the deficit didn’t seem to be an issue when post-war Europe decided to rebuild itself. In fact, it’s not an issue at all. It’s merely the new Satan, Boogeyman, whatever you want to call it. More on this imaginary enemy in the next post. (Monsieur Depardieu, you’re off the hook for now.)